For a variety of reasons, modern packaging systems and methods frequently use surface mount packaging technology in addition to or in place of traditional hole insertion packaging technology. This trend has become so pronounced that many board assembly operations do not even have wave solder capabilities at all. Instead, these modern board assembly operations have 100% of their production in the form of surface mount assembly. In response to this trend, component manufacturers must reconfigure and redesign many products to make them compatible with existing surface mount package families.
Assemblies on arrays of electronic components contain temperature sensitive components, such as temperature sensitive integrated circuits, lithium batteries, oscillator crystals, and non-volatile clock circuits (which contain both lithium batteries and oscillator crystals) and poise unique reconfiguration problems. In particular, surface mount reflow operations are typically based on either infrared red (IR) and/or vapor phase reflow. The thermal profile of each operation is usually designed, so that the leads of board components will approach 215.degree. Celsius or higher. Moreover, the exposure profile may range from about two to about eight minutes of reflow exposure, depending on the process parameters and equipment. During this time, the interior of functionally sized modules typically approaches 175.degree. Celsius as an average temperature, which damages elements that are temperature sensitive. For instance, exposure to these temperature ranges would damage lithium batteries, which are generally safe only up to a maximum exposure of 125.degree. Celsius. Current industry approaches have not protected temperature sensitive components in surface mount processes with typical reflow processes.